VENTURE CAPITAL POST

The U.S. S&P 500 stock .SPX index broke through the landmark 2,000 level on Monday, marking a six year rally which has benefitted many Americans from Wall Street to Main Street.

An index of Asian shares neared a six-and-half-year peak on Friday and was poised for a weekly gain, after upbeat U.S. economic data sparked another record close on Wall Street.

Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Libya's sovereign wealth fund are set to meet in a London court over claims the Wall Street bank exploited a position of trust by encouraging the fund to invest more than $1 billion in trades that ended up worthless.

Wall Street banks have found a U.S. review of their junk-rated loans to have yielded similar results to last year, easing some concern among bankers about a crackdown on one of their most lucrative businesses.

Volatility spiked on Thursday after the tragedy of a downed civilian jetliner in Ukraine and the mounting death toll in Gaza and Israel interrupted the summer trading slumber.

Today, home-rental Airbnb has received a rare funding that reached a hefty USD500 million from a funding round from investors led by TPG, Dragoneer Investment Group and T. Rowe Price along with other mutual funds.

GS Infrastructure Partners, controlled by investment bank Goldman Sachs Group, has sold its 49% stake in FRS Capital Corp., the ultimate parent company of SSA Marine. SSA Marine is one of the world's largest privately held port operators.

Health insurer WellPoint Inc. on Tuesday announced that it would sell its online contact lens business 1-800 Contacts to private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners for an undisclosed sum. WellPoint bought 1-800 Contacts for about $900 million.

Reuben Kressel, a 66-year old investor, completely sold his entire holding in Twitter Inc. after its shares dropped as much as $5.91 or 8% on Friday's market close. Kressel owns 500 shares in the micro-blogging site.

Wall Street banks including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have been calling on private equity firm Ares Management to go public soon. Ares, however, does not see the need for a public offering in the near future.

SecondMarket founder and chief executive Barry Silbert claimed in an article on Entrepreneur that Wall Street will soon invest their money in hundreds of millions into Bitcoin.

Private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners has agreed to purchase Los Angeles-based jeans retailer Lucky Brand Jeans from Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc for USD225 million.

Officials of Jefferson County in Alabama said it had arrived at a new agreement with its Wall Street creditors that would pave the way for its exit from its USD 4.2 billion bankruptcy.

China's iKang Goubin Healthcare is looking to launch an initial public offering, possibly in NASDAQ, next year. Before the proposed exit, iKang secured a USD100 million joint investment by Goldman Sachs & Co. and sovereign wealth fund Government of Singapore Investment Corporation.

Russia's state-run oil firm Rosneft is looking to acquire Morgan Stanley's oil trading business for an unspecified amount. Morgan Stanley has been trying to sell or spin off the said business unit over a year ago.